Wikipedia, as we know,  is a 21st century phenomenon. But in the world of Karnataka Sangeeta,  I think the concept started little earlier. The 80’s and 90’s of the 20th century were witness to the growth of  newsgroups, and other fora about Indian classical music (rec.music.indian.classical, and later other classical music portals such as www.forumhub.com, www.carnatica.net, www.rasikas.org, www.karnatik.com,  and now defunct sangeetham.com)  have been the happening places after the internet became part of everyone’s life after the mid 1990s.

One name has stood out during these last 10-20 years in these  internet karnataka sangeetha circles. This is a name that has been the  musical-sahitya-wiki for anyone who is looking for the lyric of a song. Did you catch a new song in a concert you attended? Do you want to know the composer of a kriti that you have learnt, but have no idea who the composer is? The answer is a few keystrokes away. All you need to do is ask this question in one of the music fora. Depending on where you are located on this planet you will get an answer within 12 hours. Who is behind it? Unlike the wikipedia where there are thousands of editors adding articles, this is work of a single man, who has collected lyrics of songs in several languages (like Telugu, Samskrita, Kannada, Tamizh, Malayalam, Hindi)  that are performed in south indian classical style.

He is Lakshman. Lakshman Ragade. He is an one-man help-desk answering your questions about any song – it’s raga or lyrics, or composer, you name it. Do you need the notation for a song? He might give you that too. Today if there are websites such as www.karnatik.com, and http://www.rasikas.org/wiki/ hosting lyrics of hundreds of compositions, they owe a lot to this marvellouly helpful person called Lakshman.

That’s why I said at the beginning  – Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam – “I bow to Lakshmana, beloved of conniosseurs of music“.

Over the last 12-15 years I have posted hunderds of requests about songs, and each time I have got what I wanted very quickly. So have hundreds of music lovers like me.

What do I know about Lakshman? Almost nothing. I beleive he lives somewhere in Cananda. May be in Toronto. I have never met him. I have not even seen his picture. And same is the situation with hundreds of rasikas like me. He has no personal gain from his service  to other music lovers (except may be occassional corrections to the lyrics from people who speak a specific language, if there are any errors in the  lyrics he has posted). But  he has continued to do this service to music. Even when there are repeat requests  I have never seen him to take offense to that.

So when I read the news few days ago that Sri Lakshman received the second annual Rasikapriya award from Sangeethapriya, another forum of lovers of south indian classical music (www.sangeethapriya.org),  I can’t tell how overjoyed I was!(http://www.rasikas.org/viewtopic.php?id=4021).  I am as happy as I would be  if I bagged this award 🙂

I am sure I am not the only one to have these feelings towards Sri Lakshman. But I may be the first one to do a blog post about him 🙂  . Like Lakshmana from Ramayana, who was a shadow of Lord Rama and followed him everywhere, I see Sri Lakshman as the unseen shadow following every rasika on the internet, and provide help whenever needed.

Once again, I have just one thing to say.

Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam!

ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಣಮ್ ನಮಾಮಿ ರಸಿಕಪ್ರಿಯಮ್ !!

लक्ष्मणम् नमामि रसिकप्रियम् !!!

-neelanjana